Through the recent murderous events in international waters Israel has once again shown its true colours and its total disregard for humanity. From the global reaction over the last week it seems that, for once, a huge majority of people around the world have seen these attacks in a clear light. Let us call a massacre a massacre. Whilst these atrocities have clearly appalled millions of people, the inhumanity of the Zionist regime should have come as no surprise, for this is nothing new.

What happened to the dedicated human rights activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla in the early hours of Monday 31 May was yet another example of Israel’s barbarity against innocent human beings, yet by the following afternoon it could not even be called the latest attack. As people around the world took to the streets to call for an end to Israel’s impunity, people in Palestine continued to resist all the way from the southern Palestinian town of Rafah in Gaza, north and across the Palestinian towns of 1948 Palestine, and yet further around the West Bank. At Kalandia Checkpoint near Ramallah, Palestinians gathered to demonstrate against the massacre at sea. The IDF response was violent as is the norm, and this led to more bloodshed. A 21-year-old American photographer was shot in the eye by what is thought to have been a high-velocity tear-gas canister. Emily Henochowicz was immediately rushed to hospital; she now has only one eye…

On Tuesday, three Palestinians were killed in Gaza including a 65-year-old woman who was shot in the legs in the area of the Kerem Shalom crossing. In the following days, Zionist settlers, who are supported by the Israeli government in their colonisation of Palestinian land through financial incentives and ideology (let us not forget that Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is himself a settler living in a West Bank colony near Bethlehem), have continued their violent campaigns against Palestine and its people. In the northern West Bank, settlers from the Yitzhar colony torched around 100 dunums of Palestinian almond and olive groves on Wednesday. On the same day, in Al-Khalil (Hebron), a Palestinian was killed by settlers in a car crash. Thursday morning brought yet more Palestinian blood; this time is was the blood of two schoolboys. As children from Al-Aroub refugee camp crossed a road on their way to class a car stopped and an armed settler stepped out of the vehicle. According to witnesses, the settler then proceeded to open fire on the schoolboys. This incident happened in full view of the permanently manned IDF watchtowers that dominate the entrance to Al-Aroub Camp. Two boys were shot; one was hit in the thigh, whilst the second boy is still in critical condition after being shot through his stomach. Doctors are as yet still unsure if this boy will survive. Following the shooting the settler got back in his car and drove away.